(Editor’s note: Welcome to Living Eulogies. All recollections are accurate in the author’s mind only. Apologies in advance to everyone who has different recollection of the same events. Send all complaints to Kirk Cameron. Apply pressure to stop the bleeding.)
Long before there was a Facebook status to label it, there was the OG of “It’s Complicated.” That’d be me and Joy Appedu. Joy was a delightful and constant presence in my life throughout middle school and, more prominently, in high school, though I’m not quite sure we ever really figured out exactly who we were to each other.
Who exactly we were to each other differs mightily from what we called each other. To me, Joy was Fro. As in, afro. As in, she had poofy black curls that she never seemed quite able to tame. To Joy, I was Egg or, more affectionate, Eggy, owing, I think, partly to my last name and partly to the shape of my head.
Yet if two people of opposite genders shared greater fondness for each other without actually going out for longer than a day, I don’t know who those two people in good-ole’ Fox Lane High School would be.
And I use that qualifier “longer than a day” for a good reason. Why? Because Joy and I actually did go out for almost a day. We lasted 23 hours and 45 minutes before she dumped me.
Joy came into my life like many people appear to have come into my life as I’m telling these Living Eulogy stories. One day, my life had no Joy (ha), and the next day, we were friends. Proximity, mutual friendships and a general affinity for goofiness drew us to each other. Joy was someone I could just be me around, and there weren’t too many people out there with whom I felt comfortable doing that. Joy didn’t care if I was nerdy or dorky or jocky or geeky or creative or whatever. I was Egg. She was Fro. It was that simple.
So of course I had to go and complicate things freshman year by asking her out. This was when the Commons was being renovated, and a bunch of us would hang out at lunch by the boarded-off wall to it. I don’t remember exactly how I asked her toward the end of one lunch period, but I do remember she said “yes,” and I was happy. I went home that afternoon thinking how cool it was to have someone like Joy as my actual girlfriend, someone with whom I felt so comfortable and free.
And then, at the beginning of the next day’s lunch period, she called me aside and broke up with me. I don’t know why. I don’t think I knew why then. But it wasn’t super awkward, surprisingly. That’s not to say my heart didn’t hurt. It did. But Fro and I went right back to being Eggy and Fro, two friends who liked to hang out with each other.
That continued into junior year. Fro and I had a free period together and would hang out in the now-renovated Commons. We’d talk, laugh and, if I read the signals right, flirted like crazy. The problem was I sucked (and still suck) at reading people’s signals, and she very well might have just been being friendly. Fro and Eggy. Ride or die, right?
Then, in March of that year, I broke up with my girlfriend at the time. It certainly seemed to me like Fro was making it known that she might want to actually give me a shot for more than one whole day. This flirtation went on for several weeks while I dealt with the fallout of the breakup. There would be these moments when Joy and I were hanging out that it seemed like dating was the next logical step for us, regardless of what happened back in freshman year.
But when it came time to actually do something about that, well, like I said, it’s complicated. I ended up asking out the person who would be my girlfriend for the rest of my high school days, and that relationship was great. Fro and I went right on being the friends we were. If me asking out someone else hurt her, she never showed it to me, so perhaps it’s true that I do, indeed, suck at reading signals.
I look back now and I see that the decision not to do anything, not to act, was the best action I could have taken. Though we don’t talk except occasionally via Facebook, Joy still holds a special place in my memories, simply because there are so many of them with her. All those times in the commons, all those times at football games, the time I walked in on her making out with the person she did end up going out with after I didn’t ask her (oops. Sorry about that).
Joy was and is simply a good human. That I can look back and call her my girlfriend for almost a full day of our shared history makes me smile.
So let’s raise a glass for Joy. Owner of a spectacular fro and an even more spectacular soul. Hear hear!
Who should be the next Living Eulogy? Email me at johnagliata@gmail.com.
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